🚀 go-pugleaf

> > >
> > If I'm not mistaken, the original concept for the space shuttle called for
> > a manned, reusable plane to carry the shuttle to an altitude from which it
> > could make orbit by itself.
> > Wouldn't a re-activiation of this design objective be one of the least
> > costly and most safe ways of turning our technological duckling into a
> > technological swan?
> ...
> We would have to admit that the shuttle is not the best system possible,
> dig up the old designs, then sell them to Congress, which controls the
> purse-strings.  Remember Congress?  That's the same group which gave us
> the shuttle-as-we-know-it in the first place through budget cutting and
> other political tricks, resulting in a less-than-optimal, compromised
> vehicle.
> 
  Not exactly. Congress , while by no means blameless, did not turn the 
shuttle into a hodgepodge of fiscal compromises.  Blame Dick Nixon, who
got Congress to cut the shuttle budget in half TWICE. 

History shows that the President, not Congress, is the principal architect
of space policy , and that Congress generally gives him the program he wants.
JFK wanted a big space program , he got it.  LBJ carried on the legacy, 
Congress went along.  Nixon didn't want much of a space program and Congress
was quite willing to cut Apollo 18-20, chop the shuttle development budget.

                     Marc Bonin